Should we start the countdown yet?

Thirty-seven weeks. Our baby is into the "full term" category at this point. The midwives came over the other night to make sure they could find their way to our house, to see how we're set up, and to go over contingency plans and so on. We even get a "bonus" doula slash third midwife-in-training.

And yes, in case you don't know already, we're planning for a home birth. It's got to be better than our hospital experience. We're also using hypnosis. These two items probably put us on the remotes fringes of normalcy. I remember being normal. What a long strange trip it's been.

Knowledge of these two facts would probably also send most of my relatives into fits and convulsions, made worse by trying to remain polite and not accidentally scream, "WHAT ARE YOU FREAKING CRAZY?!" But if we wait and tell them after the fact, they'll raise admiring eyebrows and become very inquisitive and tell us how cool they think it is. So they'll just have to hold off on that part of the story. We're not highly secretive about it, but that kind of thing doesn't come up. And I don't feel the need to cause undue worry. So there you go.

Meanwhile, the excitement and anticipation is starting to build. We've probably got at least a couple more weeks, but we're about as ready as we'll ever be.

Well, except for picking a name...